


The Moon is Down

by TheVelvetUndergrowth



Category: Hylics (Video Game)
Genre: Blood and Violence, Body Horror, Do not copy this work to other websites, Dysfunctional Relationships, Gen, Gibby is a complex being, References to characters & objects in Hylics 2, Stuffed to the brim with headcanons, Worldbuilding, but not a good one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:56:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26314534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVelvetUndergrowth/pseuds/TheVelvetUndergrowth
Summary: For the first time in a century, Gibby had a nightmare.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 30





	1. Sculptures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would just like to state for the record that, because a lot of the ideas presented come from my own personal interpretations of these characters, that some of details here are left intentionally vague. I didn't think explain every inch of my headcanons here flowed well in the story, so if you find any details too confusing to fill in the gaps yourself than feel free to ask me about them.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this one. Never have I written a fic this long in such a short span on time!

When it began, the only thing that Gibby could perceive was a dark red fog clouded around his being. Try as he might, the Moon King could not move a muscle nor make a sound, for the vile mist made sure to suffocate any sort of freewill his unconscious mind could muster. The only thing that came forth in this tethered state was a sort of pupigerous anticipation for a heavy dread to come. As soon as fear began to form inside him, the fog lifted like a curtain.

The environment sculpted itself with the same red clay as the fog, but Gibby was able to recognize this place as that of the moon palace, specifically the throne room. Suddenly, three apparitions appeared. The first was of a single being standing in front of the two crumbled thrones, blood leaking from the many cuts that lined its large, round head and armored body. The second and third appeared together; two statues that grew like trees where the thrones had been, their geometry twisted and pulsating. It did not take long for Gibby to realize that he was looking at a vision of his past self, the very moment that he had slain the twin Sages of Sculptures.

Albedo and Umbra, the self-declared Queen and King of the moon they built, forerunners to the downfall of the Age of Sages and igniters of the genocide of the very moon beings that they had created. 

His own parents.

Just the thought of his battle with those demiurges filled the king with a feeling of stress long suppressed by his conscience. As if fully synchronized with his emotions, the statues began to sway violently in front of the younger Gibby until their clay expanded and morphed into what resembled the top halves of both sages’ bodies respectively. Their long robes covered their arms and made them look worm-like as their half-circular heads peered down at the source of their demise.

“You dare approach us?” Albedo spoke with a vital anger in her voice.

“Our spirits will castigate your behavior until you beg us to destroy!” Umbra shouted, his head and torso eerily shaking back and forth.

“Enough of your idle chatter,” the Gibby apparition replied firmly, “The both of you have proven to me that you are ill fit to be suzerains of this celestial satellite. Step down from your thrones and retreat to Earth before I eliminate your beings.”

“‘Destroy us,’ you say? After everything we've done for you? We allowed you to experience the grandeur of the Hylemxylem, and even gifted you with the materials to build your own sculpted servant. You would be lost without our guidance, my child."

“And who will rule on our desolate satellite? You? Ahahahahaha! You are not even a sage, you pompous brat!”

“Neither are you two anymore! Your destructive passions have de-emanated you out of your sagehood. Now that your flesh is just as pliable as any hylic’s, I’ll make the both of you _wish_ you were merely exiled to the Afterlife!”

Yes, this was all very familiar. In fact, it was the exact same conversation they shared before he laid waste to the sages. Just as Gibby’s mind could wrap itself in the comfort of a familiar memory, their words began to change.

“Yes... yes… a fitting fate for us monsters,” Albedo spoke calmly, even as her flesh was slowly starting to melt, “And one that you too will inherit, my child. We molded you just like ourselves, and in your rule you have justly proven your violence upon your kingdom’s creatures. You always have been a true tyrant, and always will be.”

“What makes our treatment of the moon people any different to your treatment of the hylics?” Umbra added on, his own flesh falling off in little chunks, “We at least had the tenacity to permanently eliminate those who opposed us, you simply did nothing but torture them down on that ‘xylem of yours! We had expected better of you, Gibbulus!”

“What could you have possibly expected of me?!” Both the apparition and Gibby’s subconscious vessel were trembling with rage. “You sent me down to the Hylemxylem when I was barely out of my larval form! Separated from my own world and people for the sole purpose of acting as your earthly puppet! Your actions caused the sages to retreat until I was the only one left piloting that rotting ‘xylem! You both continuously denied me a position on the moon until I was forced to craft a device to take me back up there myself!” 

Both Gibby and his younger apparition laughed wickedly as everything around them adopted an orange coloration.

“But you shriveled psychics did not expect your little pawn to exceed the handicaps you molded onto him! You demiurges set the stage for your own downfall at my hands!”

Both sages’ faces had been reduced down to their skulls once Gibby had finished his rant. The twin statues stood motionless.

“You have proven to be just as much a demiurge as we have been,” Albedo declared in a voice as hollow as a thrumming bass, “Only you are far worse.”

“Cease your demented ramblings this instant!” Gibby chided, not entirely sure whether the reply came from him or his apparition this time.

“You subjugate all but a chosen few to lunacy. Are you aware that your moon rays suppress their minds and make them prisoners of their own bodies? It is a genocide of freewill itself. Even we did not do that to our people.”

“S-Si-Silence! I know what my spells do, y-you weaponized corrosions! And do not dare compare my rule to your genocide!”

“HE begged for YOUR help during our civil war!” Umbra shouted, the environment now changing to the color of bright yellow, “And not only did YOU ignore HIM in favor of gallivanting on your precious ‘xylem, YOU SPENT THE LAST CENTURY TORMENTING HIS ONLY SURVIVING SPAWN! AHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAA!”

“SILENCE!!!”

The entire palace was thus encased in harsh white light, blinding Gibby’s subconscious eyes. He blinked furiously as the next dreamy environment slowly appeared before him. It was a faded, but colorful looking place, with a blue sky above and soft soil below him. Finally able to move, he knelt down to grab a handful of the pastel tan clay he stood upon, all of which could effortlessly be crushed to microscopic proportions when balled in his fist. He must be on Earth! Gibby stood back up and tilted his head upwards to look up at the sun and confirm his suspicions, but he did not find it. Instead he saw the moon, his own celestial satellite, looming directly over him. At first it looked nothing short of pulchritudinous as it hung in the daylight sky like a great cosmic ghost. As Gibby admired its beauty, he soon felt uneasy looking at it. It seemed to grow larger and larger in front of him… wait. It was falling straight towards him! Even as his muscles commanded him to run, he once again found himself held tightly in place, this time by the hands of multiple hylics. 

The terrified tyrant

screamed and struggled

 **help** lessly as the moon **fell**

 **closer** and closer until he **could**

**finally feel its harsh,** **burning**

**radiance melt all of the flesh**

**from his bones.**

* * *

Gibby instantly shot up from his sleeping position, his flesh caked in sweat and his muscles trembling violently. Now finally free of atonia, he made a gesture to turn on the lights in his room, then went about examining both his environment and his own fretful body for anything his subconscious might have conjured up. Nothing unusual here. His being was nice and secure in his bed chambers, glands completely unliquified. 

He steadied his breathing and let out a quiet chuckle to himself. No frivolous nightmare could ever harm the Great King of the Moon! 

Yet still, the visions transmitted to him in that nightmare continued to wriggle in his brain like a hungry worm. It had been so long since he had any proper dream visions, so it all must mean something! Gibby yawned and stood up to stretch. As much as his tired body pleaded with his ruthless brain, he simply couldn’t risk wasting any more time in slumber. Once he had slicked his mohawk and fitted himself in his royal vestments, the moon king examined himself in the mirror. For some reason his being looked quite morose in the reflection, so he made sure to counteract this by stiffening his posture and adopting a more darkly serious expression.

“Everything you’ve done, you’ve done for a good reason,” he reassured himself, then proceeded out of his chambers and into the palace halls. The king had multiple orders to enact today.

The first thing he did was update himself on Wayne’s current position. It seemed as though that milksop was still content to laze about in that little earthly shack he’d found. Just as he had hoped. The next thing to be done was call his court to the throne room for a meeting. His orders were simple: send someone down to the island that Wayne resided on and close the harbor port indefinitely, make sure the switch to open the port is moved far off on a different isle and heavily guarded and, of course, destroy that terminal he’s been using to travel to the southwest island. Apparently Wayne, in all his social ineptitude, had somehow been forming an allyship with some odd species of hylic, which could potentially serve as a kindle to ignite a strong rebellion.

“I trust that you and your subordinates can efficiently indulge my considerations?” King Gibby lounged in his moon rock throne as he spoke to his newly appointed head servant.

“Ah, of course, your grace!” His clawman eagerly replied in its obnoxious, hissing voice, “I and my subjects will pilot the spaceship to the recolored isle and set the switch up there. Nothing but insects inhabit that wasteland, so there will be no interference. Would you like my guards to install a projector into the port controller? It’s an unbeatable security measure, state of the art from my sibling’s enterprise!”

Gibby rolled his eyes, “Very well. Just make sure this is done as soon as possible!”

“Of course, my glorious king! As quick as the youthful gastropod preys on the, uh, oceans-juice!”

Once their brains had fully digested their tasks, his subjects cleared out of the throne room on command to enact their king’s orders. Gibby couldn’t have been more glad to be rid of that clawman for even but a few days. It was an efficient butler, and powerful bureaucrat to boot, but all its being truly amounted to was simply another source of empty suggestions and persistent flattery. Not to mention its abhorrent poetry! Nothing more than a shell of what Dracula had been to him…

No matter, he’ll at least have his Wayne back with him soon. Sooner or later that crescent whelp will truly learn what it’s like to be trapped, and once he realizes how useless his precious hylics really are he’ll cry and beg for his former position back! Gibby snickered at the mental image of it all. This time he won’t be so careless with his handling of him. As he stood up from his throne, the Moon King took a moment to examine the mangled geometry of the twin statues that flanked him. He raised his left arm, and the left statue shook in response. He raised his right arm, and the right statue did the same.

A sinister smile formed on Gibby’s rotund face. There was not a thing in this world and beyond that could match his power!


	2. Poetry & Humility

Another nightmare came two weeks later.

It had taken an agonizing long while for Gibby to fall asleep, which was something that had become a lingering problem for him ever since that initial dream vision. In his endless wisdom he assumed that having a glass of undiluted poolwine before bed would fix this issue. The dissolution would hardly affect him with his level of power, and he badly needed more time to rest. What the king did not consider, however, was the sleep paralysis that came from the remaining sentience of his drink frothing about in his stomach, nor did he predict the waking hallucinations that danced in and out his fixed vision. They l **oo** ked t **o** be little black circles in vertical lines, but Gibby wasn’t entirely sure. The sweat and numbness in his face br **o** ught **o** n by the diss **o** lution made it hard f **o** r his eyes to make them **o** ut. He sw **o** re he c **o** uld pick up a faint transmissi **o** n t **oo**. A s **o** und s **o** rt **o** f like p **o** etry…

_A hallowed homunculus invisibly renders a fire_

_The people bleed the memory_

_It is a theory amidst a corrosion_

_It is sort of like radiance…_

_Despite tyranny._

Ah, yes. Poetry. Spoken from the unseen mouth of his own sculpted poet, Dracula. Its voice was unmistakable; a hollow gentleness like that of a glass harmonica being played in the deepest chamber of an empty cave. Now where could that traitorous lyricist have gone off to? 

_Meanwhile Gibby, King of the Moon,_

_Extrudes a spirit_

_Inside the stone prison._

Something felt wrong about all of this. It was as if he were listening in on something he wasn’t meant to hear, a kind of plot against him. There was nothing the king could do to act against these hallucinatory transmissions, for the soothing familiarity of his former servant’s voice brought his mind into the realm of slumber. 

_Thus your story begins..._

When Gibby opened his subconscious eyes, he was seated on his throne, tapping his finger impatiently. He looked around cautiously to check for any irregularities in his familiar setting, but nothing appeared to vex him. It was then that the doors below him opened and a myriad of lunar guards in their thick, clanking armor filed inside the throne room. They were all led in by Wayne, _his_ Wayne. His lunar captain looked nothing short of demoralized as he kneeled in front of his king, the guards making sure to keep themselves at a safe distance from the two of them. Gibby remembered this moment vividly.

“My King,” Wayne spoke solemnly, swallowing before he finished his sentence, “My forces and I were unable to retrieve Dracula. He has taken the spaceship and is journeying to Earth as I speak.”

“You truly have the nerve to march in here and tell me that it has outsmarted you?” Gibby instinctively replied with a biting disdain.

Wayne looked up at him with a slight hint of resentment in his expression, “Yes my king, _he_ has managed to escape from my grasp.”

“He?” Gibby laughed at his inferior’s insistence of giving that sculpted one an identity, then quickly became serious again. “This will not do. All the training I have provided you, all the forces at your disposal, and even then you flounder like a melancholy nematode at such a simplistic task! You are in need of some correction, Wayne.”

Utterly defeated, Wayne rose to his feet. He knew he could not disobey his king for fear of being granted a worse punishment. He nodded, then turned to face his guards.

“You may all be dismissed.”

With that the guards slowly began to lumber back down the stairs. Before they could take even a few steps forward, however, Gibby held up his hand in a commanding gesture.

“No,” the king spoke firmly, a smirk forming on his face, “You will all remain here. I want you petty lot to witness what your offending captain lacks.”

Wayne gasped, a clear look of shock gracing his ever-exhausted face, “My King! This was a matter between the three of us, they have no business with our affairs!”

The Moon King stood up from his throne and took a step toward Wayne, every one of his movements playing out exactly as they were from memory. Just like before, his captain took a step back in response and continued pleading with him.

“Gibby please! There has to be another way we can settle this!”

“But this is another way,” he spoke with a mocking gentleness as he took another few steps forward while Wayne continued to back away from him, “You proved to me you haven’t learned a molecule from any of our private battles. Perhaps a public beating will finally put you in line!”

Gibby kept stepping toward him until Wayne had backed himself up against the wall railing. The other guards remained glued to their positions, too afraid to move. The king took in his Wayne’s fear, the rapid breaths and trembling of his muscles. He could never fully understand why, but seeing him like this never failed to make him angry. However, just as he raised his armored glove to strike his underling across his pathetic face, Wayne snapped.

“Ack!” Gibby stumbled back, covering his injured eye. Even in memory the pain of that hit felt too real.

“NO!” Wayne yelled. His muscles still trembled, but through his good eye Gibby could see a pure anger mold itself onto his captain’s face, “I refuse to be treated like this anymore! The only thing I’ve ever learned from you is how much you enjoy humiliating me, and how much rancid pleasure you take in treating me and Dracula and all the others like your slaves! If you don’t proscribe your bullying instincts I’ll...I’ll…”

Wayne quieted his rant as Gibby loomed over him. The entire room was disturbingly silent. Gibby knew what was about to come next, and thus he held back his boiling anger until the moment came in 3...2...1…

“I’ll join Dracula on Earth!”

_-WHACK-_ The king slammed his fist straight into the crescent head’s face, knocking the insubordinate down to the ground. Like clockwork, he grabbed him by his horns and gave him several kicks to the gut before throwing him into the right-hand wall. The battle played out exactly from memory. Although Wayne attempted many fighting gestures, his strength hit like a plastic biscuit compared to King Gibby’s horrible power! He beat Wayne until his yellow flesh was smudged and dented! Until hot blood leaked out of him and the tips of his skull showed themselves on his horns! 

Gibby stopped his beating once Wayne was crumbled up and twitching on the cold palace floor, only this time something was different. The entire environment seemed to blur around him. The guards, the twin statues, the walls, the floor, everything became a mess of scrambled lines. Everything except Wayne.

The only sound now came from his victim’s strained breathing, which grew louder and louder with each pained gasp. All Gibby could do was stare at the twitching body as it lifted its head to look up at its tormentor. The way Wayne looked at him, with those tear-soaked eyes and debased whimpers, made him furious. Just like before, the king let out an angry shout as he gave his former captain one last, hard hit, and watched in shock and disgust as Wayne’s flesh melted off his face for the first time until he was nothing more than a soaking wet pile of bones. The chaotic blur of the lines that made up their surroundings faded into pure blackness, the only source of light coming from the pale orange glow emitting from the Moon King’s own head. He bent down to pick up his fallen comrade’s skull, only for it too to vanish into nothing.

“Were you satisfied with your decision?”

Gibby jumped at the sudden noise, then turned around to look for where the words had come from. In the middle of the inky blackness stood a tall moon being garbed in dark blue robes, its crescent head emitting its own pale yellow light. It was the original Wayne.

“I never thought I’d see you like this again!” Gibby eagerly walked up to face his former friend, taking his hands into his own, “It is a shame how it had to end, your lurid turning and my terrestrial entrapment, but let it be known that I do cherish this brief memory of you.”

“Please answer my question.” Wayne spoke sternly.

The king huffed, averting his eyes from the being before him, “Truth be told, I was sort of pained by it. Something about seeing his flesh specifically melt clean off of his skull turned my wheel of disgust, I must admit. Perhaps I should not have given him _that_ hard of a final blow-”

_-Smack-_ Gibby gasped at the sudden sensation of being slapped clean across the face. He placed a hand on the soreness of his cratered cheek and angrily looked back at Wayne, who had now grown slightly taller.

“I said answer my question, you nodulous lard-venter!” Wayne was barely able to keep himself from shouting, “Were you satisfied with your selfish decision?!”

Gibby growled under his breath. How dare that crescent head strike him as if he were some bungling servant! “Is this what I get for showing you my grace? Then fine! I _am_ satisfied with my decision! In fact, I was _generous_ with my treatment of that little brat!”

_-SMACK-_ Another blow came from Wayne, this one hard enough to knock the king down to the ground. He quickly got back up and performed a leeching gesture at the moon being, who now possessed a great tail and many little holes lining his crescent horns, but nothing happened! The being snapped its fingers at him, and Gibby let out a pained yelp as the blow sent him falling flat on his backside.

“You _knew_ those tyrants were enacting a genocide on the moon! You _knew_ how they imprisoned me and used my children for their bidding! You _knew_ they would wipe us all out the moment I rebelled! And _what_ did you do?!”

Wayne then enacted a charged gesture at Gibby, soaking the powerless overlord in a thick coat of dissolution. The king tried to speak out, but could only cough and hack at the viscous pain his glands were enduring.

“You ignored my cry for help and waited until you thought the sages had been weakened enough for you to pilot yourself up to that satellite, and then you went and took over their dreaded hierarchy!” He then used his long tail to give the tyrant several lashings on his back.

“Ack! _-cough- -cough-_ But I...I… _-wheeze-_ ” Gibby tried to speak as he rubbed his newly formed welts, “I saved your only surviving child!”

That remark earned him another painful lashing.

“Dracula saved my child!” Wayne shouted, “That sculpted slave of yours was the one who found my little larva amidst the rubble, you merely let the child live within your palace. The poet nurtured and cared for him as much as its stunted emotions would allow, while all your being ever did was torment him!”

Now Wayne looked entirely different. His massive body and tail made him appear as a great worm. The eyes on his head were now completely replaced with many little black holes, along with two smaller crescents that crowned the tips of both his horns. It was an image like that of a sage. The little king whimpered pitifully, no longer knowing what to do or say as the great being continued to humble him.

“I saw something wonderful in you once, but I can now no longer recall that feeling…” The Ancient Wayne revealed his large arms from under his robes, his right hand holding what looked to be a little ball of kaolin clay. He then began to make a pulling gesture with his other hand, causing a spell to stretch and melt before him.

“Now face your fate, demiurge!”

The intensity of the gesture hit him like nothing he had ever felt before, and multiple times at that! He felt a searing torture in his arms and legs until one by one they fell off of his body. He then felt the same pain in his head until…

* * *

Gibby suddenly awoke with a splitting headache! It appeared that in his tossing and turning he had managed to fall out of his bed and onto the cold, hard floor. Even as his mind re-emerged into the waking world, his body was still too terrified to move. He stared at the ceiling as he slowly but surely controlled his hyperventilating, all while pondering the new visions he was granted. Dracula and Wayne… it was as soon as those two escaped the moon that all his trouble began. They had to be plotting something against their king!

The Moon King sat himself upright, not bothering to turn on the lights in his bedroom as he rubbed his temples. Truth be told, he still could not understand the significance of the original Wayne appearing to him. In fact, just the thought of him made Gibby furious. The nerve of that apparition to humiliate him so! Did that fool have any idea how long it takes to build a functioning spaceship, during that age no less? Besides, Gibby hardly even knew him anyway! That Old Wayne should have begged someone else for help! How hard could that’ve been?

Ill content on moping around any longer, the king fixed himself up and went about his royal duties for the night. Or at least he would have if not for his poor health. It had to have been from the poolwine still lingering in his gut. After nearly passing out from exhaustion right in front of his court, his clawman and several lesser servants quickly ushered him out of his throne room and back to his private chambers.

“Bring my television to me,” Gibby ordered them, “If I am to be bedridden, then I must use my time to digest any elusive gestures!”

“Another wise decision from your hallowed mind, my luxurious king!” The clawman replied with honeyed words. “ I will do my utmost to make sure the others keep in line during your absence.”

“Must forget cycloid dirt; doesn’t a vacuum agree?” A servant blurted out in gibberish.

As his underlings went to fulfill his desire, the king also ordered his gourmet chefs to microwave several burritos for him as well as bring him a chilled juice box. And thus, Gibby spent the rest of the night watching TV while stuffing greasy food and sugary beverages down his throat, or to put it more accurately, he utilized an ancient learning device to hunt for useful battle spells as he nourished his famished body back to health. A wise decision from a wise ruler.

The television only projected but a single gesture, that being the all-powerful Cosmic Procession, but Gibby already knew that one. The truth of matter was that he simply wanted the distraction of the TV to get him through his illness, as he was too nervous to attempt falling asleep and risking another deathly nightmare. As his eyes dully soaked in the static that flickered on the monitor, his thoughts turned back to his Wayne. Why hadn’t that pathetic creature folded under his isolation yet? He was always a needy little thing, it wasn’t like him to attempt playing the long game…

_Wayne caresses many convexities_

_But will he approach that beast?_

Ah, there was Dracula’s voice again! Where was its transmission coming from?! Gibby turned up the volume of the TV in an attempt to drown out the intruding voice.

_...Meanwhile at the Moon Palace,_

_Gibby liquefies. Soon a melancholy_

_homunculus will be horribly castigated..._

Liquefies?! Oh, they must feel oh so content mocking him from down there, but woe be to them when the Great King of the Moon up-heaves their rebellion and shears his wrath upon their glands! He had witnessed the Age of Sages in all its glory, he had reconstituted the very Sages of Sculptures with his own two hands, and now he pilots the Earth’s greatest satellite.

Nothing could ever hope to defeat King Gibby! Nothing at all!


	3. Doom

The third nightmare that the king had dreaded… did not come at all!

As much as Gibby initially resisted, the dull comfort of his television overcame his urge to keep awake and gently whisked him off to slumber. The only thing that occupied the Moon King’s dreams were static and dancing gremlins, alongside a disfigured hylic or two. All in all, it was the good day’s sleep that he desperately needed!

Newly recharged, the king set about his duties for the night, all of which would be entirely focused on Earth. The greatest benefit to the lunacy rays he projected onto the earthly hylics were how docile it made them, and thus the only individuals he ever needed to worry over were the scant few anarchists scattered about the planet. However, because only so few were able to resist the lunacy aggravation, it made it that much more difficult to efficiently track down and put an end to them. Gibby didn’t need to hold a meeting for this matter. The preparations for his Wayne’s isolation on that tiny isle were already put in place weeks ago. All the king wanted was an update on how close that crescent head was to finally cracking, and then he could hatch a plan to locate Dracula’s presence through the ethereal signals it transmitted.

It was then that his thoughts drifted to the future. Once he were to stop Wayne & his army of anarchists, theoretically there would be nothing left to hinder his higher plans for the Earth once its entire populace danced to the beat of his efficiency. So long had that great clay planet floundered in the seemingly endless dark age of its own Accretion, not even the empire of the sages had the power to emanate it into its full potential. Only one as wise and long lived as Gibby knew that the sole method to bring enlightenment to the Earth was through a great re-formation of the planet and all its beings.

He could see it all so clearly. A magnificent world free of life and death, where only he could control the pain and love of his loyal subjects. No longer would he merely be King Gibby, instead he’d finally become the Sage of Reconstitution and, eventually, the first fleshly being to metamorphose into a true pneumatic!

But for now he had material matters to attend to.

As he searched for his clawman to relay the progress its underlings have been observing, Gibby noticed something odd as he turned his head toward one of the windows looking out at the ruins in front of the palace. Even from such a distance he noticed that there was no spaceship docked on the main tower’s landing pad, alongside what appeared to be a small gaggle of his subjects moving around at the port station. The king did not give any commands to pilot that ship tonight. With an annoyed sigh, Gibby went back to his chambers to garb himself in his royal cloak, then made the long, cold trek out of the palace and straight to whatever forbidden shenanigans were going on down there.

Once he crossed the long bridge to the station, he could clearly make out the hissing yells of his clawman before even seeing its large green exoskeleton. There was but one lowly underling left near it, the others having been sent off and one having just been killed (presumably by the clawman itself). The spiral-horned underling was shivering from what seemed to be fear more than the cold. It noticed its king’s presence far before the ranting clawman.

“What are you turning your head to?! I said face me, you smearing-” the clawman turned its wide head to the side “AHHHHH! Ah, umm, my king!”

“Good evening, my subjects,” King Gibby spoke politely and with a forced smile, “I have actualized no order to pilot our ship for tonight, and yet mine eyes doth perceive its absence. Who will care to tell me why that is?”

“Mu-My dear ku-ku-ku-king,” the clawman stuttered, “I-I-I too noticed the-the spaceship’s absence! I should ha-have t-tu-told you about it sooner perhaps, bu-bu-but I figured I could settle it out here with the culprits myself, sp-spu-spare you the trouble!” 

The wretched creature pinched its claws rapidly in a vain attempt to stop whatever nervous agony wracked its feeble mind. Gibby would have found its blatant fear amusing if the situation wasn’t so concerning.

“And who might the culprits be?”

“Oh, just a group of insubordinate guards! The-They made the mistake, um, at least I had heard, from-”

“But wasn’t it your order, sir?” the little underling blurted out innocently. It immediately regretted its words as the clawman swiftly took it into a stranglehold.

“BE QUIET YOU SHRIVELED LITTLE HYLIC!” The raving bureaucrat turned its head back to its king as it continued to squeeze the life out of its subordinate, “I’m dreadfully sorry this thing spoke out during our conversation, now if you please-”

“Drop the inferior,” Gibby commanded, “I want to hear what it has to say.”

“Bu-Bu-Bu-But-”

“I command thee!”

With great trepidation, the clawman released its grip on the underling’s neck and let its body fall back onto the ground. Gibby knelt down to look at the little hylic face-to-face, then held its shaking hands tenderly in his own. 

“There is nothing for you to fear, my sweet hylic. Your king merely wants to hear what has happened with the spaceship.” His words were deceptively gentle, enough to encourage the stupid creature to tell him everything it knew.

“Well, first off my boss here ordered me and the others to go look for that terminal, the one that the Wayne had been using, and that all happened while you were resting.”

“Perplexing,” Gibby said in a sarcastically confused tone, “I had ordered you and your superior to destroy that thing. Now how could one bungle such a monochrome command?”

“My boss wanted to bring the device to his sibling down at Wherewithal Labs’s headquarters, y’know, that great big ivory tower! Something about figuring out its technology to process it or something, but anyway it fell outta the ship and got lost somewhere.”

Gibby nodded in approval at its words, all while the clawman squirmed like a maggot in the hot sun.

“So once we realized it was gone, he ordered some of us to take the ship back down to Earth and look for it, but when we landed on this one island and stepped outta the ship we got ambushed by some coneheads! All of us sent straight to the Afterlife! We all got back here using a crystal warp to the moon palace, but we didn’t get to activate any on the island we landed it on, so it’s basically stranded there. Now we can’t find the terminal OR track the boat-”

“What boat?” The king’s toying sarcasm metamorphosed into genuine concern upon hearing that word. That better not have meant that...

“You don’t know, King Gibby? The Wayne and some others found the port switch and got away on a big boat yesterday! Or was it two days ago?”

He got away. That bastard got away, and no one told him.

The tyrant made sure to keep his expression plainfaced as he stood up and faced his head servant once again, who by now looked as if it were about to melt into a puddle. It shuffled a few paces sideways, but was forced to stop as its king walked right up to its face. The pathetic bureaucrat tried to speak, but no sound managed to escape its mandibles.

“Well, it looks like we won’t need to worry about locating that terminal anymore.” Gibby let out a dark laugh, “Wayne already went and visited his friend, and now it seems he’s not only making more, but now has just the _slightest_ possibility of taking them all on a trip to my satellite!”

The clawman didn’t even get a chance to plead before Gibby began destroying it. Not fully, of course. Insubordinates of that caliber did not deserve a trip to the Afterlife to lick their wounds. It only took six swift blows to send the pitiful creature crumbling to the ground, its body all mangled and twisted. The little subordinate quivered as it watched its boss cough up wells of pink blood from its bruised mouthparts.

“Now you listen well, hylic!” Gibby’s words were dripping malice like venom, “If you can’t mobilize your shriveled vessel back to the palace in time to serve me supper, I’ll reconstitute your being into a couch cushion!” He turned his back to the wretched traitor and was about to make the trek back to the palace, only to be to be stopped by a voice in his head.

_At last the psychic spirit is rescued._

_With pneumatic chemicals, Wayne is miraculously_

_Purifying a passion far beyond fate!_

Not again! Not again! Why does it sound so much closer now?!

“Um, excuse me King Gibby,” said the underling as it cautiously tugged its king’s fancy cloak, “Would you like me to-”

Instinctively Gibby turned around and snapped his fingers at it, instantly killing the little weakling. Served it right, interrupting his thoughts like that!

_But it’s inside mere skeletons, and beings._

_Their gentle hope will not be debased._

“Stop it! Cease with this noise! Your poetry is meaningless to my mind!”

Gibby found himself running back to the palace. With everything he learned from those traitorous nematodes, it would not be long until Wayne would be able to gather his whole army of anarchists and hoist them all up to his moon. Gibby wished this was just a nightmare, another loony dreamscape that he could wake up from, but this time it was all too real. The poetry transmitted into his mind only served to stoke the king’s fears that that time was drawing nearer, and no matter how hard he ran, he could not drown out Dracula’s crystalline voice.

_And now the time for tyranny-creatures_

_draws to an end. Gibby, burning, tethers grimly_

_In the lunar fortress._

There was no more time to waste! Gibby threw his cloak at the nearest servant as he hurriedly navigated the palace’s thin, twisting halls upwards to its very top. The tyrant pushed his way through crowds of lunar guards and even his own court members as if they were mere obstacles, all the while trying to concoct an efficient plan of action in that massive, fancy meat computer he called a brain. Did he have enough guards to defend the palace? Certainly, although he couldn’t be sure how easily they would stand against their former captain. His court was next to useless at this point, and it would take too long to construct a new spaceship in time to retrieve the old one. Perhaps it was time to contact Odozier again… no! What could that parasite possibly do for him? He had needed his magic once, but not anymore! 

No, the King of the Moon couldn’t hide behind his forces like a frightened larva, he had to deal with this matter himself! Just like with the Hylemxylem! Just like with his mother and father! As he ascended higher and higher, more voices wormed their way into his large head.

_I am not gone, old friend. I merely lay in wait to emerge from your destruction._

_I’m not your little toy anymore, Gibby! My friends and I will eclipse your being!_

_Come to us, my child. Only now can we join together._

_Ahahahahahaha! You're doomed, Gibbulus! The Moon is doomed!_

This was all just his subconscious playing tricks on him! Their words meant nothing, they never had and they never will! Finally the king had made it to the top of the fortress. He opened the tall doors to his empty throne room, giving no consideration to the activated crystal in front of him, walked up to the top of the stairs and-

_-SLICE-_

* * *

It all happened so fast that Gibby could not even properly react to the sudden pain he endured. There was a sharp sword stuck straight into his gut, its holder none other than his old poet, Dracula.

Upon realizing what was going on, Gibby cried out in agony before falling to the floor. With shaking hands, the poet pulled out the sword from its former master. Clutching his wound, Gibby looked up at the six black holes etched into the non-removable helmet of his sculpted servant, taking in the details one last time.

_“The wandering prisons end with my spirit.”_ Dracula declared. Even when affected by lunacy, the poet always seemed to choose its words elegantly.

The Moon King gave him a cruel, tired smile, then pointed at Dracula. He moved his hand in an odd gesture, casting a vision of an orange circle that slowly drained to black at his fingers’ movements. The spell ended when he made a fist. “You may speak your mind now.”

“ _I can no longer stay subservient to your tyranny anymore, Gibbulus,”_ the poet’s voice remained as hollow and monochrome as ever, _“Any semblance of the leader you once were has been washed away by the tides of your own selfish ambitions. I have been taught what suffering is like, and now I cannot be fulfilled until you repay their pain with your flesh and bone.”_

“Is that truly what you think, sculpted one? Or did Wayne somehow manage to reconstitute your mind to do his bidding?” Gibby’s breathing was labored as he spoke, and he continued to lie in agony on the floor, holding his wound, “Do tell me though, how did you get back here? You have no soul to reconstitute yourself in the Afterlife.”

_“You are correct in that I did not die to return here. In my wandering I discovered a sole geyser of terrestrial juice, transporting me to the Afterlife below. I used the crystal you leave for your servants to re-enter this accursed fortress.”_

“Interesting…” He gave himself a brief moment to consider the idea that the Afterlife geysers were returning. That will certainly come in handy for his future plans!

“By the way, I’d like you to know that I too had been picking up on those elegic transmissions you’ve been sending my Wayne. No secret of yours can slip past your master, you modified hunk of dirt!”

_“He is not ‘your’ Wayne! And I am no longer your sarkic instrument! We are individuals, Gibbulus, just like every other creature on the Earth and Moon. It took a long time for me to absorb enough emotions to understand these complex feelings, but now I know.”_

“Of course you know.” The tyrant then slowly lifted himself up, pretending to stagger, and took a step toward his poet. Dracula pointed the sword at him and took a step back in response. Closer to the statues.

“Why did you come here alone? If you really wanted to banish my fatal tyranny then why not join your forces with Wayne? I know that stunted whelp would have adored your company.”

_“I…”_ Dracula hesitated. Gibby took another exaggeratedly pained step toward his former poet, leading his creation ever closer to where he wanted it.

_“I guided his thoughts with poetic transmissions, but I could not burden him with my presence anymore. Even if his affections for me were still great, I knew it was time for him to develop on his own. He needed to find beings that could show him true love, that kind of affection and care which my own instincts lack…”_

“Be still, my heart! You truly believe yourself to be his guardian, don’t you? Well, allow me to remind you for the last time.”

No longer faking agony from his minor wound, the deceitful overlord raised his arm high. His eerie statue responded immediately, flexing its rope-like tips and unleashing a twisting Doom Spiral upon the unsuspecting Dracula. The poet was rendered stunned by the blow, allowing Gibby to swiftly attack.

“You only watched over him because I commanded you to!” Gibby painfully twisted Dracula’s arm, forcing it to drop its sword, then began beating the poet senseless, “You are only a poet because I commanded you to become one! You only have any sense of freewill because I forced you to be more than your fate as a soulless slave, a choice I now completely regret!”

Dracula was thrown to the ground. The tyrant looked over the form of the traitorous sculpted one, then gestured the horrid, cutting symbols of his Cosmic Procession straight into the poet. It let out a hollow scream, then laid twitching on the floor in defeat. Gibby raised another arm, signaling his vital statue to fully heal the wound in his gut. His great head cast a shadow over most of Dracula’s cracking body as he loomed over it. 

_“I was never… born a soulless slave… despite what you metamorphic beings may think.”_ Dracula solemnly declared, _“The only reason I… did not rebel against you until now... was because-”_

The sculpted one was silenced as Gibby stomped with full force on its head.

“I don’t care why you rebelled against me!” He then bent down and grabbed hold of Dracula, hoisting it up above his head and slowly stepped to the railing wall, “All I know is that now you are USELESS!”

With that, he threw his creation down to the bottom floor of the throne room, content on letting the old poet slowly crumble into the kaolin, bone, and soul sponge it was made out of. Gibby took a few moments to watch his dying creation, wondering why it had truly come to fight him alone. Perhaps as a final, desperate act of revenge for its treatment at its master’s hands? No, Dracula had become too clever to resort to such an impulsive action. That’s when it dawned on Gibby; this had to have been a distraction, to keep him busy and bid time as Wayne and his army drew closer. Dracula had willingly sacrificed itself for its loved one.

Gibby sighed. Of all the emotions that sculpted one wished to develop, why did it fixate on love? There was no pain in the world as cruel and everlasting as that kind of affection, it either destroys your heart or, in poor Dracula’s case, your life.

At that very moment, his powerful senses picked up a faint but familiar hum of a spaceship docking on the port tower.

The King of the Moon sat down on his throne and waited. He sat tall and regal as each minute ticked by, not daring to slouch or relax his muscles. Eventually he heard the great palace doors open up, followed by the continuous sound of armor being crushed. The lunar guards were a failure, he’d have to evict them from his satellite. Even sooner came the screaming chorus of his court as they were defeated one by one. They too would have to go. Then the doors to his throne room opened. He heard a brief mumbling down below, then watched as his former captain strode up to him with an army of… three others.

Gibby chuckled darkly at the band of misfits in front of him. Really? _This_ was the only army that idiot could conjure up? A dirty tendril-head, an insect-reeking hick, and an outdated fossil of a dread knight? He would have burst out laughing at such a pathetic sight if he wasn’t so blinded by fury.

“Gibby, I’m going to give you one chance,” Wayne spoke face-to-face with his tormentor, struggling to keep his anger from spilling over, “Leave the moon and go back to Earth in exile by yourself, or face your destruction at our hands.”

“You dare approach me?” The tyrant king spoke, his tone a hybrid of amusement and dread.

“I’m serious, you demiurge!” Wayne shouted, “It’s all gonna end right here, right now!”

Demiurge, eh? Fine then. If these hylics wanted to face the wrath of a demiurge so bad, then that’s exactly what they’ll get!

“My furnace will sustain your vessels until you beg me to debase! Now, suffer thine hylic world! It is the last time you will!”

Let the battle commence!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a chaos of visions and voices  
> The moon is down  
> Sad is the laugh of the clown  
> Now the old moon is down
> 
> \- Excerpt from "The Moon is Down" by Gentle Giant


End file.
